School-bus drivers vent frustrations over new hires

Sunday

Aug 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMAug 30, 2009 at 12:48 AM

HOUMA — A group of part-time Terrebonne school-bus drivers says the new full-time hires brought on by the School Board this summer have siphoned off the extra routes they used to supplement their income.

Naomi KingStaff Writer

HOUMA — A group of part-time Terrebonne school-bus drivers says the new full-time hires brought on by the School Board this summer have siphoned off the extra routes they used to supplement their income.

The group of more than 30 drivers met with a Marksville attorney and the president of the state’s bus drivers’ association Saturday morning in the Mechanicville Gym.

Nancy Crochet, one of the part-time drivers, said she went from more than 40 hours per week to the base 25 hours because her extra routes were given to the new full-timers. Her monthly paycheck has dropped from more than $2,000 to a little more than $1,000.

“I’m head of household,” Crochet said. “I depend on that salary to get me through the month.”

School officials say the drivers still have opportunities to pick up extra trips each week.

“There’s several things – games, trips – that these regular drivers will have a chance to do and make extra money,” Transportation Supervisor Devlin Aubert said. “Extra money is still there.”

More than 180 drivers work for the school system. Sixty-four of them are members of the Terrebonne Bus Drivers Association, a local chapter of the Louisiana School Bus Operators Association, which advocates for drivers in the state, said school-bus driver Patricia Zagorski.

The group also says the new positions violate state law, because they are essentially new routes that should have been filled according to seniority.

Bill Whalley, a Marksville attorney for the Louisiana School Bus Operators Association, said the group has a case. The School Board effectively reduced their pay without holding a hearing, as prescribed by law, for those with tenure, or at least three years of employment, Whalley said. Tenure law says school-bus drivers’ jobs are personal property that cannot be arbitrarily taken away, he said.

“They know they are taking your money right out of your pocket,” said Whalley, who’s worked for the association a total of 12 years since 1981. “I think what y’all were dealt was a demotion.”

He said the new positions were created outside the bounds of state law. The new positions were new routes, he said, and the most senior drivers should have been given priority.

Before resorting to a lawsuit, the drivers should try every avenue to settle the matter with the School Board, added Calvin Latiolias, president of the Louisiana School Bus Operators Association.

“We have to give the School Board every chance to correct this,” Latiolias said.

This summer, the School Board approved hiring 20 drivers to work 40 hours a week. But in doing so, the other drivers, who work a base of 25 hours per week making morning and afternoon runs, have lost the extra routes. Those include taking students on field trips, after-school sporting events or runs to the Vocational Technical High School in the afternoons. The drivers said they had to apply for those extra routes and were told they wouldn’t be taken away.

Crochet and fellow bus driver Kathy Hill said their regular Sunday trips to take local students to the Louisiana School for the Deaf in Baton Rouge have been given to the new full-time drivers. Hill said she doesn’t understand the logic in giving the job to a driver who doesn’t know sign language when she does.

Aubert said extra trips are still available. He said he couldn’t speak on what was promised before he started in his job this past year.

As for the hiring of the new 20 drivers, Aubert said the new positions were open to all bus drivers. Seniority didn’t have to be the determining factor for filling them, he said.

“We looked at a variety of things: attendance, professionalism,” Aubert said. “This is a whole new position that was created. It wasn’t a regular position.”

Staff Writer Naomi King can be reached at 857-2209 or naomi.king@houmatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter as HoumaGov.